Apple never attempted to bias Newsweek against hiring Dan Lyons as a tech columnist, says Steven Levy, Lyons' predecessor at the magazine. Lyons has gained fame in recent years as "Fake Steve Jobs," a parody of the famous Apple CEO. In an interview with CNN this weekend, Lyons claimed that the head of Apple PR once attempted to persuade Levy to tell "the powers that be at Newsweek that Apple wasn't happy with the idea that they were going to hire me."
